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A lasting impression

Strauss’s 150th year has been a festival of genius

Hugh Canning

December 28 2014, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Head up: the Proms heard Nina Stemme perform Salome for the first time (Chris Christodoulou)

A CENTURY and a half on from his birth on June 11, 1864, Richard Strauss remains a controversial figure. His decision to remain in Germany when Hitler came to power, and his relationship with the Nazi regime — fractious but, at the crunch, servile — blighted his postwar reputation. He was viewed at worst as a collaborator; at best as politically naïve and opportunistic.

Critics have argued that the period of the Third Reich coincided with a decline in his powers. At the end of the war, with his beloved theatres in ruins, the 81-year-old composer railed against Hitler and his cronies as the worst criminals the world had ever known. But he regained his powers in a nostalgic Indian summer, when he composed Metamorphosen,…